breeze. It piped through her
scant rigging with the clamour of half a gale, and poured into her
canvas with a savageness of spite that threatened to tear the cloths
clean out of the bolt-ropes, while it careened the craft until the lee
gunwale was completely buried in the hissing turmoil of foaming yeast
that roared out from under her lee bow and swept away astern at a
headlong speed that made Leslie giddy to look at. And so furiously did
the over-pressed catamaran charge into the formidable seas that came
rushing at her weather bow that she took green water in on deck at every
plunge, that swept aft as far as her mast ere it poured off into the
dizzy smother to leeward, while her foresail and mainsail were streaming
with spray to half the height of their weather leeches. Leslie knew
that he was not treating his craft fairly in driving her thus recklessly
in a strong breeze against a heavy sea; but he had perfect faith in her;
he had driven every bolt and nail in her with his own hands, and was
confident that there was not a weak spot anywhere about her; and the
excitement and tension of the last few hours had wrought him into a
condition of desperate impatience that would brook nothing savouring of
delay. And, being completely dominated by this spirit of impatience, it
was a vexation to him to find that he would be unable to weather the
island without making a board to the southward, for as he stood there at
the tiller the whole island--or at least as much of it as showed above
the horizon--loomed out as a misty grey blot against the star-lit
heavens clear of the luff of his foresail.

Leaning forward, Leslie gently raised the corner of the tarpaulin with
which he had covered Flora to protect her from the moon's rays and the
drenching spray, and found, to his intense relief, that she had fallen
asleep, the sleep, probably, of complete exhaustion. Nor was he greatly
surprised at this, for, as a matter of fact, now that the frightful
danger was past and his excitement was subsiding, he also began to
experience a sensation of weariness and a desire for sleep. But this it
was of course quite impossible to indulge just then, so he lighted a
pipe instead, and gave himself up to reverie, steering the craft
mechanically, with his eye steadfastly fixed upon the luff of his
mainsail, as a sailor will, although his thoughts may be thousands of
miles away from his surroundings.

As Leslie stood there, gazing abstractedly ah